By Dan Ambrose: WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley (30-0, 12 KO’s) refuses to see his 40-year-old opponent Juan Manuel Marquez (55-6-1, 40 KO’s) as having any real chance of beating him in their fight this month on HBO on October 12th. Bradley sees the slow moving Marquez as perfect for his style of fighting, and he plans on exposing him in this fight the way that Floyd Mayweather Jr. exposed Marquez 4 years ago when he easily beat him by a lopsided decision in 2009.
Bradley said this via Dan Rafael “I’m gonna whup his a** and the judges will give me the decision. That’s the bottom line.”
The fact that Bradley feels that he’ll get the decision over the more popular Marquez tells you that Bradley plans on really beating him bad. Bradley has never wrong in the past when he’s been as confident as he is now, and that seems to tell you that Bradley has scouted Marquez well and knows that there’s no way of him losing to him other than by a lucky knockout win for Marquez.
Marquez certainly looked beatable in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao in December. Marquez won by the fight by a 6th round knockout, but he would have lost it had the fight gone on for another 1-3 rounds.
Pacquiao was on the verge of stopping him when Marquez took advantage of Pacquiao’s sloppy fighting style and knocked him out in the 6th with a right hand. Bradley isn’t sloppy with his defense the way that Pacquiao is, and for that reason this fight isn’t going to end with Marquez knocking Bradley out.
I don’t see either guy getting a KO in this fight. Bradley’s defense and chin are too good for him to get knocked out, and Bradley doesn’t hit hard enough to KO Marquez. This fight is going to be determined by who the better boxer is, and that would seem to be Bradley.
Ruslan Provodnikov had Bradley badly hurt in their fight in March, but that was only because Bradley purposefully fought in an aggressive manner to try and win over fans. Bradley won’t try that move in this fight with Marquez he realizes that the Mexican fighter is too good for him to try and stand and trade with him for 12 rounds like he did against Provodnikov.
That doesn’t mean that Bradley will run from Marquez for 12 rounds. Bradley will fight with Marquez when the need arises. Otherwise Bradley plans on boxing Marquez and keeping him from landing his hard counter shots.
It’s really the smart thing to do, because Marquez has problems with boxers with fast hands. Mayweather showed that clearly in 2009, and he didn’t attempt to go toe-to-toe with him the way that Pacquiao foolishly did in their 4 fights.
Bradley isn’t going to whip Marquez’s backside in the physical sense, but he’s going to whip none the less because of his superior boxing style and youth. Bradley is only 30, and he’s much younger than the 40-year-old Marquez. That youth will play a huge role in this fight.
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